Graduates fresh from university will find it difficult to find a job after a 35% drop in hiring by employers over the last year, according to analysis by a leading recruitment data provider.
Hiring freezes at many employers have taken the biggest toll on graduates and meant there is fierce competition for the few jobs left for younger workers.
Healthcare workers and teachers have also emerged as among the biggest victims of a broader slowdown in the number of employers seeking new staff, data from Adzuna shows.
The overall jobs market is “cooling, not collapsing”, according to the firm’s figures, with salary growth continuing to outpace inflation despite a year-on-year dip in overall vacancies.
However, the scale of the challenge for job seekers varies significantly depending on where in the country they are and what jobs they want to do.
While the overall decline in vacancies was modest, conditions are more acute for graduates and sectors including healthcare, while the number of vacancies for warehouse workers and cleaners had risen sharply.
The trend in graduate hiring is particularly bleak, with advertised vacancies down 8% to 14,162 in August, 8% below the previous month and more than a third lower than this time last year.
The number of people under the age of 25 not in employment, education or training (Neets) has risen sharply since the pandemic, peaking at 971,000 last year before dropping to 948,000 in the three months to June 2025. In 2019, the average was below 800,000.
Jobs site Indeed recently said graduates in the UK were facing the toughest job market since 2018 as employers pause hiring and use AI to cut costs.
Healthcare and teaching continue to be among the hardest-hit areas of the labour market, with vacancies in the health sector down by 6.7% after a fall of more than 10% in July. Teacher vacancies fell by 6.4% in August, while hospitality was down 6.5%.
Jobseekers’ prospects also varied significantly depending on where they were in the UK. In the south-west, there were 1.3 people competing for every job, with the south-east registering 1.46.
But the picture in the north-east was much tougher. There, 3.36 people battled over each vacancy, followed by 3.25 in Northern Ireland and 3.14 in the West Midlands.
Senior figures in the retail and hospitality industries have raised concerns recently that job seekers face mounting challenges, citing factors including the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and higher costs for employers after last year’s budget.
Unemployment remains at a four-year high of 4.7%, while Adzuna’s figures showed that the average number of job seekers per vacancy across the UK has risen slightly from 1.93 to 2.
Overall, the number of available positions fell to 846,567 in August, 2.1% below both the figure registered in the previous month and 1.3% below the same month of last year.
The year-on-year fall ended a five-month run in which the number of vacancies had risen year on year.
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The jobs platform said its latest report “hints at a labour market that is cooling, not collapsing”, pointing to continuing increases in what employers are willing to pay.
Average advertised salaries continued to rise faster than inflation, up 8.9% on last year to £42,367, with Scotland registering the fastest growth, up 12.15% to £39,127.
The figures also show changing trends in the jobs market.
The fall in the number of healthcare vacancies means that roles in the sector are no longer the most heavily advertised jobs. Instead, warehouse worker positions climbed to the top of the rankings.
The fastest increase in vacancies came in the domestic help and cleaning sector, up 6.8%, followed by human resources and recruitment (5.1%) and retail (3.7%).
Andrew Hunted, Adzuna’s co-founder, said the appetite for hiring was “uneven and increasingly shaped by a mix of sector-specific swings and the growing role of AI within the UK labour market”.
He added: “It’s a reminder that the market is still finding its balance as emerging technologies, shifting skills demand, and macro-economic conditions continue to redefine where and how employers are hiring.”
The average time to fill a role reached 37.3 days in August, almost a day longer than the previous month’s 36.3 days.
Hospitality and catering roles were filled almost a week faster than the previous month, averaging 31.9 days compared with 38.4 days, while IT roles slowed sharply, taking 50 days compared with 40.3 days the month before.
Employers also dialled down transparency over what prospective candidates would be paid. In August, 43.9% of job ads included pay details, down from 45% in July, reversing recent improvements seen earlier in the summer.
